List of Prime Ministers of India

Narendra Modi is the current (15th) Prime Minister of India, since 26 May 2014.

The Prime Minister of India is the chief executive of the Government of India. In India's parliamentary system, the Constitution names the President as head of state de jure, but his de facto executive powers are vested in the Prime Minister and his Council of Ministers. Appointed and sworn-in by the President, the Prime Minister is usually the leader of the party or alliance that has a majority in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of India's Parliament.

Since 1947, India has had fifteen prime ministers, including Gulzarilal Nanda who twice acted in the role. The first was Jawaharlal Nehru of the Indian National Congress party, who was sworn-in on 15 August 1947, when India gained independence from the British. Serving until his death in May 1964, Nehru remains India's longest-serving prime minister. He was succeeded by fellow Congressman Lal Bahadur Shastri, whose 19-month term also ended in death. Indira Gandhi, Nehru's daughter, succeeded Shastri in 1966 to become the country's first woman premier. Over eleven years later, she was voted out of power in favour of the Janata Party, whose leader Morarji Desai became the first non-Congress prime minister. After he resigned in 1979, his former deputy Charan Singh briefly held office until Indira Gandhi was voted back in six months later. Indira Gandhi's second stint as Prime Minister ended five years later on the morning of 31 October 1984, when she was gunned down by her own bodyguards. That evening, her son Rajiv Gandhi was sworn-in as India's youngest premier, and the third from his family.

Rajiv's five-year term ended with his former cabinet colleague, V. P. Singh of the Janata Dal, forming the year-long National Front coalition government in 1989. A six-month interlude under Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar followed, after which the Congress party returned to power, forming the government under P. V. Narasimha Rao in June 1991. Rao's five-year term was succeeded by four short-lived governments—the Bharatiya Janata Party's Atal Bihari Vajpayee for 13 days in 1996, a year each under United Front prime ministers H. D. Deve Gowda and I. K. Gujral, and Vajpayee again for 19 months in 1998–99. After Vajpayee was sworn-in for the third time, in 1999, he managed to lead his National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government to a full five-year term, the first non-Congressman to do so. Vajpayee was succeeded by Congressman Manmohan Singh, the first Sikh premier, whose United Progressive Alliance government was in office for 10 years between 2004 and 2014.

The incumbent Prime Minister of India is Narendra Modi who has headed the BJP-led NDA government since 26 May 2014.

Key

Colour key for party of the prime minister   Bharatiya Janata Party   Indian National Congress designated Indian National Congress (I) 1977–1996[1]   Janata Dal   Janata Party   Janata Party (Secular)   Samajwadi Janata Party

Other key №: Incumbent number ^† Assassinated or died in office ^§ Returned to office after a previous term ^RES Resigned ^NC Resigned following a no-confidence motion

Prime Ministers

№	Name (birth–death); constituency	Portrait	Party (Alliance)	Term of office[2]			Elections (Lok Sabha)	Council of Ministers	Appointed by
1	Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) MP for Phulpur		Indian National Congress	15 August 1947	27 May 1964^[†]	16 years, 286 days	—	Nehru I	Lord Mountbatten
							1952 (1st)	Nehru II	Rajendra Prasad
							1957 (2nd)	Nehru III
							1962 (3rd)	Nehru IV
–	Gulzarilal Nanda (1898–1998) MP for Sabarkantha		Indian National Congress	27 May 1964	9 June 1964	13 days	– (3rd)	(acting)	Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
2	Lal Bahadur Shastri (1904–66) MP for Allahabad		Indian National Congress	9 June 1964	11 January 1966^[†]	1 year, 216 days	– (3rd)	Shastri
–	Gulzarilal Nanda (1898–1998) MP for Sabarkantha		Indian National Congress	11 January 1966	24 January 1966	13 days	– (3rd)	(acting)
3	Indira Gandhi (1917–84) MP for Rae Bareli		Indian National Congress	24 January 1966	24 March 1977	11 years, 59 days	– (3rd)	I. Gandhi I
							1967 (4th)
							1971 (5th)	I. Gandhi II	V. V. Giri
4	Morarji Desai (1896–1995) MP for Surat		Janata Party	24 March 1977	28 July 1979^[RES]	2 years, 126 days	1977 (6th)	Desai	B. D. Jatti
5	Charan Singh (1902–87) MP for Baghpat		Janata Party (Secular) with INC	28 July 1979	14 January 1980^[RES]	170 days	– (6th)	C. Singh	Neelam Sanjiva Reddy
(3)	Indira Gandhi (1917–84) MP for Medak		Indian National Congress (I)	14 January 1980^[§]	31 October 1984^[†]	4 years, 291 days	1980 (7th)	I. Gandhi III
6	Rajiv Gandhi (1944–91) MP for Amethi		Indian National Congress (I)	31 October 1984	2 December 1989	5 years, 32 days	– (7th)	R. Gandhi	Zail Singh
							1984 (8th)
7	V. P. Singh (1931–2008) MP for Fatehpur		Janata Dal (National Front)	2 December 1989	10 November 1990^[NC]	343 days	1989 (9th)	V. P. Singh	R. Venkataraman
8	Chandra Shekhar (1927–2007) MP for Ballia		Samajwadi Janata Party with INC	10 November 1990	21 June 1991	223 days	– (9th)	Chandra Shekhar
9	P. V. Narasimha Rao (1921–2004) MP for Nandyal		Indian National Congress (I)	21 June 1991	16 May 1996	4 years, 330 days	1991 (10th)	Rao
10	Atal Bihari Vajpayee (born 1924) MP for Lucknow		Bharatiya Janata Party	16 May 1996	1 June 1996^[RES]	13 days	1996 (11th)	Vajpayee I	Shankar Dayal Sharma
11	H. D. Deve Gowda (born 1933) MP (Rajya Sabha) for Karnataka		Janata Dal (United Front)	1 June 1996	21 April 1997^[RES]	324 days	– (11th)	Deve Gowda
12	I. K. Gujral (1919–2012) MP (Rajya Sabha) for Bihar		Janata Dal (United Front)	21 April 1997	19 March 1998	332 days	– (11th)	Gujral
(10)	Atal Bihari Vajpayee (born 1924) MP for Lucknow		Bharatiya Janata Party (NDA)	19 March 1998^[§]	22 May 2004	6 years, 64 days	1998 (12th)	Vajpayee II	K. R. Narayanan
							1999 (13th)	Vajpayee III
13	Manmohan Singh (born 1932) MP (Rajya Sabha) for Assam		Indian National Congress (UPA)	22 May 2004	26 May 2014	10 years, 4 days	2004 (14th)	M. Singh I	A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
							2009 (15th)	M. Singh II	Pratibha Patil
14	Narendra Modi (born 1950) MP for Varanasi		Bharatiya Janata Party (NDA)	26 May 2014[3]	Incumbent	1 year, 346 days	2014 (16th)	N. Modi	Pranab Mukherjee

Timeline

See also

• Prime Minister's Office
• List of Prime Ministers of India by longevity
• List of Presidents of India

References

1. "Indian National Congress". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 21 May 2014.
2. "Former Prime Ministers". PM India. Retrieved 2 January 2015.
3. "Narendra Modi appointed Prime Minister, swearing in on May 26". The Times of India. 20 May 2014. Retrieved 22 January 2015.